Three minute rounds? Ten round title fights? Roy Nelson states his case

From MMAMania.com:

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UFC heavyweight contender and well-traveled mixed martial arts (MMA) veteran Roy Nelson wants to instill a sense of urgency in fighters while also making life easier for cageside judges charged with calling the bouts.
That Roy, what a guy.

Part of his grand plan is reducing the length of rounds from five minutes to three, which in turn would create five round fights for non-championship bouts and ten round affairs for title fights.

"You'd probably see a lot more action because you're constantly trying to win the round. Guys wouldn't be feeling out for two minutes. It's boom, you've got to go right away. They want to add more championship rounds -- that's where I say switch everything to three minutes and go 10 rounds. Then you have a lot of ups and downs ... I'd say judges lose sight. One guy will dominate for four minutes, the other dominates for a minute and they give the round to the second guy ... I've watched fights where I actually take a stopwatch and say, ‘No, he won four minutes of that round but the judges gave it to the other guy.' They just remember that last minute. Three minutes is short enough that the whole round stays in your head."

The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 10 champion has a different vision of improving the sport and has found an unlikely ally in Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) Executive Director Keith Kizer (via ESPN.com), who finds merit in Nelson's argument:

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"[It's] common sense. Three-minute rounds is less stuff to judge. It’s easier to run a mile than a marathon. Five minutes is a long time and it does make judging more difficult."

Not really. All it would add to each non-title fight would be 2 extra one minute breaks between rounds. The producers could easily find some fluff/pomp & circumstance to cut back on and make up for the lost minutes. Sure, it adds an extra 5 minutes of downtime to title fights that go the distance, but so what? I think that it puts more demand on the company to make title fights that are truly worthy of seeing.

Shorter rounds would make the fighters press the action early on in the fight so they can establish a lead on the scorecards. Thus, with MMA being as unpredictable as it is, that could potentially lead to even more crazy knockouts or submissions out of nowhere. However, just like in boxing, we would also see fighters coast through the later rounds after they know they have done enough to win the fight. Still, the other side to that is that typically the fighters who are losing the fight on the scorecards will be more likely to know it going into the later rounds and they will be forced to press the action themselves if they hope to win the fight.

No one way is going to be perfect, but I would definitely be in favor of seeing how this method worked for MMA.

Not really. All it would add to each non-title fight would be 2 extra one minute breaks between rounds. The producers could easily find some fluff/pomp & circumstance to cut back on and make up for the lost minutes. Sure, it adds an extra 5 minutes of downtime to title fights that go the distance, but so what? I think that it puts more demand on the company to make title fights that are truly worthy of seeing.